Scissile
by Elliptic Eye
Summary: Some encounters cut, not join. Some do both. Those hurt more.


(Kinkmeme fic for the spnkink_meme community, where the OP asked for Dean/Castiel wing!porn in a snowstorm. So, an excuse for me to indulge myself in the angst and the pretty, basically.)

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They're fighting demons in South Dakota, scant miles from where Dean's baby brother once bled out in the mud on the most unholy ground Dean knows. But this is a few degrees east and swathed in snow. No trace of that other place can be seen.

"Cas!" Dean bellows. _"Cas!"_

He looks around in the snow, breathing hard. Straining his ears, he waits several beats, listening for any reply. He has to listen, because between the trees and the endlessly falling veil of white, he can't see more than ten feet in any direction.

Silence. Thick, muffling, icy-white silence.

Dean feels the familiar constriction of panic at his throat. He shouldn't: Castiel has rarely shown any sign of vulnerability before, and logically—logically, Dean knows—anything that could threaten him would be beyond Dean's power to stop. Fear is instinctive after a lifetime of looking out for Sammy, though, and Dean feels it for Castiel now. Castiel isn't Sam, but Dean is still Dean.

Then he sees the blood.

It's spattered against the snow and frost on the trunk of a tree. Dean probably wouldn't have seen it, otherwise. It's only when he runs over there that he can see the rest, or the footprints that go with it, because the snow is thick and the blood has melted dark pits in the drifts.

Dean's heart climbs into his mouth, which he tells himself is stupid. Castiel could lose gallons and still be unharmed; he'd simply keep going quite literally by the grace of God. For all Dean knows, this blood could be demons' anyway. Something still makes his stomach clench, though, and after a moment he works out that it's because he hasn't been attacked by anything for whole minutes. No demons. No demons anywhere. No sounds of fighting, no response from either side to Dean's voice echoing through the forest. That's either just peachy or very, very bad.

Or possibly both.

Dean grips Ruby's knife more tightly and slips forward, following the splashes of red. All around him in the half-light, the tumbling flakes whisper against each other.

When he catches sight of a patch of tan, he thinks for a moment it's just his eyes misinterpreting the shadows on the snow. Then he sees a stripe of blue.

"Cas," Dean breathes out.

He wades through the last few yards as fast as he can. Castiel is lying in a small clearing, cradled by snow with blood at his feet; his face, Jimmy Novak's face, is as peaceful as a child asleep, and it's that peace that stabs Dean with terror.

"Jesus. Jesus, Cas, you've got to be kidding me." Dean sinks to his knees in the snow, sheaths the knife within easy reach, half expecting a trap. Castiel doesn't stir when Dean pats his cheek. "No way. Don't even think it." Dean wipes the blood from Castiel's face, from his temple and his cheek and where it's trickled from the corner of his mouth, and still Castiel isn't moving. Oh, God (where the _fuck_ is God?).

Gingerly, Dean slips an arm under Castiel's shoulders, tugging him gently out of the snow and up against his chest. Jimmy's body goes without resistance, lighter than it should be, slighter under his clothing than Dean has ever realized and it is terribly wrong that his head rolls on Dean's shoulder and Dean is thirteen again, shaking his little brother's body and freaking out after a run-in with a spirit and no no no. _No._

"Cas, you stupid bastard…" Dean's fingers skate across Castiel's throat. He can't find a pulse, but he's not sure that isn't because his fingers are half-frozen. Castiel is still warm, but that doesn't mean anything; Sam stayed warm for hours.

Numbness spreads through him at the impossibility of it. He moves his hands over Castiel's inert vessel, parting his clothing where it's cut or torn to probe the skin beneath, but though the angel is drenched in his own blood, Dean can find no wounds. That has to be a good sign. A good sign, sure, but he has no idea what to do next, it isn't like he knows fucking angelic first aid, and—

There's a sound like the beating of wings and a smell of ozone. In the next moment, Castiel breathes in deeply, a clean, unlabored breath.

"Cas, you back?" Dean grasps his shoulders. "Oh, thank God."

He's being such a frigging _chick_.

Castiel breathes evenly for a few seconds more, no longer limp against Dean's chest, then opens his eyes. It's the same fathomless, slightly curious look he always wears, like waking up to Dean clutching his body like a child who's lost his first pet is of no consequence whatsoever. Snowflakes land on his face. "Hello, Dean," he says.

And Dean kisses him.

Dean wraps one arm under his back and the other hand behind his neck and kisses him, just seals his mouth over Castiel's. He kisses him like he's sealing a deal, or like he might find God in it somewhere. Castiel's lips are as soft as they've always looked. His mouth is unresponsive under Dean's, but neither has he stiffened or drawn away, and okay, Dean should probably call time-out and poll Cas for his opinion on this, but he can't make himself pull back. Castiel makes no move of his own, but he lets Dean cradle his head without resistance, lets Dean urge his lips apart, pliant and accommodating. Dean plunges his tongue into the warmth of his mouth, desperate for the heat, for proof of life, for—_something_.

When the pitch of need overwhelms him, Dean finally pulls back, gasping. It's only now hitting him what he just did, and he's too stunned by his own stupidity to really take it in. He looks down at Castiel in something like horror.

Castiel looks back placidly, much as he did when Dean stabbed him through the heart.

Dean swallows. He lets go of Jimmy Novak's coat and climbs to his feet, looking anywhere but at Castiel. Half a dozen crass wisecracks run through his head, ways to brazen it out, to pass off his behavior as insignificant, but—no. Dean doesn't relish doing that with the people who matter to him. Something tells him that that would be more insulting than anything he just did, and no less perplexing to Castiel. "You want to tell me what happened here?" he says instead, quietly.

Castiel picks himself up without difficulty, glancing at his own form with faint curiosity. "I drew the demons here in the hope that they would ambush me. They did. Since I can no longer manipulate demons directly, I temporarily separated myself from my vessel to make myself wholly manifest to them, and they were consumed or fled."

Dean stares at him blankly. "You can do that?"

"For brief periods, it seems so."

"You mean you didn't _know?"_

"What Raphael did in Maine gave me the idea. It was a calculated risk." Every once in a while, the calm in Castiel's voice brings home to Dean the truth that he literally is a soldier.

Dean looks about the clearing. The snow is silently covering up the blood. "What if something had happened to your meat suit while you weren't in it?"

"I would prefer not to test my theories."

"What?" Dean starts forward in anger. "Why the hell would you—?"

"Dean. There were many more demons here than we were led to believe. You would not have been able to fight them off, otherwise."

Dean exhales. "You mean this was a trap."

"It's possible that Lucifer knows you are a vessel."

"And it's also possible that he'd use me to draw out Sam."

"Very."

Dean finds himself staring at Castiel again. "I just about sexually assaulted you, and now we're talking tactics?"

Castiel tilts his head and frowns, like he sees no contradiction.

Dean twists away. "Never mind." He stares out through the woods. Snow is still coming, thick flakes spinning as they fall, seemingly the only thing that's moving other than them. His heart clenches. It's beautiful.

A gentle hand lands on his shoulder, and Dean shuts his eyes against a blinding flash of want. He doesn't even know what he wants; he just knows that he feels raw and stretched, and sooner or later he's going to have to snap back. He takes a deep breath and shrugs the hand off without turning around.

He can feel Castiel's eyes on his back. Why he threw away a perfectly good opportunity for them both to forget the whole thing, he'll never know. Does Castiel even understand what Dean did? Uriel understood about him and Anna. Gabriel certainly understands the whole gamut. Castiel doesn't often seem to share human emotions, but he clearly knows what they are. No, it's not possible that he has no comprehension of what a kiss like that means. He simply doesn't seem to care.

That's the thought that makes Dean want to seize him and shake him. He just wants some reaction, even if it's to smite his ass into the ground, some evidence that it's possible to _touch_ him—

Before he can think about it, Dean is turning, and it's the complete, maddening absence of any judgment in Castiel's eyes that makes it possible (_necessary_) to grab his face between his hands and kiss him again.

Again Castiel allows it. And it shouldn't turn him on that Castiel is completely passive and open to him, except that every second of passivity makes Dean need to see violent ecstasy painted on his face a bit more. Castiel's strangeness and calm cut him deeper than the rake of a girl's nails down his back. Dean drags a hand down over Castiel's ass under the trench coat and slams their hips together. Castiel's borrowed human frame is responding, hard against Dean's hardness.

Dean pulls back. "Say no," he says harshly.

But Castiel just looks at him, mouth wet and swollen, and says instead, "There is time."

Dean makes a sound of pure need and thrusts once against Castiel's groin. He starts pushing Castiel backwards, stumbling through the drifts. Snow is soaking his socks, but Dean doesn't care.

His mind is going to shards. Sharp, glittering—

Dean drags his nose down Castiel's cheek to fasten his mouth over the pulse point under the jaw. Ozone still seems to cling to him, storm-smell, the scent of strangeness and power. Dean moves his mouth over fragile skin hard. He takes one of Castiel's hands and plants it on his side, presses the fingers into his flesh under his t-shirt.

This isn't really Dean's style. He's more of a lie back and let her give 'im hell kind of guy. But he needs, oh, _Christ_, he needs. The wind is picking up, whipping snow against them.

One part of Dean's brain keeps working even as he gets his hands inside Jimmy Novak's shirt to the soft skin burning there. It carries on working even when Castiel moves his hands over Dean's back, too soothingly. It surveys the scene in the clearing with angelic detachment Dean doesn't want to be part of him and sees the picture they make.

_"Cas,"_ Dean chokes out, and doesn't know what he's begging for.

There is a higher reality here. The reality is that Castiel tarries in this body and this world, but does not belong there; that Castiel feels, but not feelings commensurate with those of men; that Castiel may be cut off from heaven, but is not bound to the world Dean sees. Castiel may be cut off from heaven, but that does not make him human, and it never will even if it eventually makes him mortal.

The reality is that if Castiel chooses to do this, chooses to let Dean shove him up against a tree and to cup his vessel's hand around Dean's cock, it is a _choice_, a product of thought and not adrenaline.

What scares Dean is _why_. If not a human reason, then why?

Dean pins Castiel full-length against the trunk of the tree with a hand in his hair. Once he's still, Dean feels like he can catch his breath; he rests his forehead against Castiel's breastbone and breathes. Castiel shuts his vessel's eyes, drops his hands to his sides, and waits.

That damned shirt is even further undone than usual. Did Dean do that? Dean must have done that. He moves the tie out of the way and parts the stained fabric to press his mouth against the fragile line of Castiel's clavicle and down over his sternum. When Dean cleans drying blood from the unbroken skin beneath with the flat of his tongue, Castiel's head falls back against the tree.

Dean looks up. Castiel's eyes have gone unfocussed with sensation, but behind the feedback from his vessel, something different and literally inhuman still lies. Dean feels the realization like a kick to the stomach.

It makes him push more fiercely.

"I can't," he whispers into the hollow just beneath Castiel's ribs. "I can't accept that."

If the words perplex Castiel, he gives no sign of it. There's no reaction at all, in fact, not even a hitch in his breath. "Cas," Dean moans, and what it means is _please_.

Castiel apparently understands. He tilts Dean's face gently between his hands, too gently, and touches his lips to Dean's. It's a simple, unsophisticated movement without hesitance, and it tastes of consolation. Dean can't tell if it soothes or burns.

A bird somewhere up above looses a handful of snow down onto them; it lands inside Castiel's collar as Dean's hand lands on his fly. Castiel doesn't flinch at the cold. Of course he doesn't. But Dean flinches for him, wipes it away, places soft open-mouthed kisses over that skin to warm it. The exposure and vulnerability of the line of Castiel's throat makes Dean's insides knot up with want, makes him need to _pushpushpush,_ but he stutters to a stop with his hand halfway into Castiel's trousers, suddenly and uncharacteristically shy. Why in God's name is he shy? Castiel's the one who's obviously never done this. But he is, and he can't move forward no matter how his erection aches, can't move without some sort of sign.

He gets one. Castiel's hand calmly and unshakingly covers Dean's and guides it to the waistband of Jimmy Novak's boxers.

The sound Dean makes in the back of his throat is outright _embarrassing_.

He shoves both their pants down, hissing at the frigid air hitting his cock, and crowds forward into the warmth of Castiel's frame. He curses and throws out some sort of apology for the coldness of his hand as he lines them up together. It's been a long time since he did this, and he's shaking with more than just cold, and as he grinds desperately into Castiel's borrowed body he can't seem to find the rhythm.

Snow everywhere, and the rough bark of the tree. Dean wants to lie with him, wants to slide through sheets together and rub the arch of Castiel's foot with his toes, but some part of him knows that this is the only way this can ever happen, and that part is crying out in grief.

Dean feels fingertips against his forehead. It's the same gentle touch the angel uses to zap people somewhere, or whisper them to sleep, but all five fingertips. And it doesn't send Dean anywhere or knock him out; Dean doesn't know quite what it does. It centers him without quieting the clash of his emotions. It's a piece of Castiel, slipped quietly across to Dean; not something the angel has, maybe not even something he remembers, but some inarticulate promise of distant peace in which Castiel has absolute faith. Dean has no such faith. He doesn't have any faith that Castiel's own faith won't be rewarded with nothingness, but somehow it's enough for him to know that Castiel _should_ be right. It's enough to move again.

Dean's hand is warmer, now. He traps them both together with it and wraps the other flush around Castiel's hip as Castiel's trail up Dean's ribs. Dean begins to move, with a careful gentleness that's more desperate than anything that's gone before.

He'll never know exactly what makes him look up. It's some sound, or some not-sound, or not-smell or not-sensation. But as the wind picks up and whirls snow against his back in a thick curtain, something makes the hairs on Dean's neck rise and he looks.

A vast arcing shadow, inky black against the snow, spreads from Castiel's shoulders. Dean's breath freezes in his throat. The wings are intangible, shadows cast from some other plane onto this one, yet Dean feels their presence. His mind splinters between the onslaught of the present and months-old memory.

_good things do happen_

_can they be good if i don't deserve them?_

_this is your problem: you have no faith_

_i have faith in you_

White flakes whirl against and through the sweep of black. When Dean looks in shock at Castiel's face, he finds his pupils blown and lips parted. Dean kisses him, closed-mouth, almost chastely but for the fact that they're thrusting against each other. Rhythm is taking over for them both. Dean's fingers hover over an idea of feathers, and he's unsure whether he's more afraid he won't be able to touch them or if he will. The hand prints on his shoulders suddenly burn hot, and—

—and he remembers.

He remembers something searing, inside and out, an absolute light that tore through everything. Gasping, pressing his cock hot and insistent against Castiel's groin. He remembers a voice that broke more than glass, calling his name, calling for _him_. Wrapping one arm hard about that warm waist, feeling Castiel's hands move lightly on his back. He remembers being _made_, feeling atoms and energies knit themselves up into sinews, and understanding it all so perfectly that he went mad before that was fixed, too. Pressing in, oh God that soft mouth, so accepting, so sweet. He remembers, just for an instant, terror more total than anything he ever felt in hell.

"Castiel," Dean chokes out, the first time he's used the angel's full name in months. "_Castiel—"_

It's a small mercy that Jimmy Novak's body lets go just before Dean does; it's strange, even through the blinding peak of his orgasm, to feel Castiel shaking against him. Dean stifles his cry into Castiel's neck.

Then silence, punctuated only by their breathing returning to normal and a ubiquitous whisper of snow landing that's probably more imagined than heard. Dean feels as if the snow is sifting _through_ him, feels broken and freezing even as he cleans Castiel up and puts their clothes back together with as much care as he can find.

He can't make himself back away from the beckoning warmth of the other body yet, he just can't. So he stays close against Castiel's front as he refuses to meet the other man's (_his friend's, an angel's_) eyes and says, _"Why?_ Why did you let me?"

Castiel's voice is quiet, and it's cadenced like someone who wears language rather than living it. "It seemed to be the only way you'd understand. You only learn things with your whole self."

"And what the _hell_ was I supposed to get out of that?"

Castiel just looks at him. "The desire for unattainable things is what animates all souls, Dean. You have nothing to be ashamed of."

Dean feels something rising up in his throat and bites his lip to keep it down. "I just want—I want—"

_to move you._

"I know, Dean," Castiel says quietly. Dean presses his face against Castiel's shoulder, letting out hot tears onto a shirt that's whole and unstained again.

Castiel folds Dean's head under his chin, and Dean could swear he feels the brush of feathers across his back.


End file.
